Everfound (50 page)

At the moment of detonation, Allie became the selfish one, holding on to Mikey with the full force of her will as the light called to him. Mikey knew, however, that this was an irresistible force.

“Please don’t go,” Allie whispered in his ear.

“I don’t want to,” Mikey whispered back, “but it’s time.”

They both wished that they could stand there, holding each other forever—and as if to answer them, the light gave them a precious gift. It took that elastic Everlost moment, and stretched it, making it feel like an entire lifetime. Intense. Fulfilling. Complete. And when the timeless moment was over, Mikey kissed her one last time, then let go, and disappeared into eternity, leaving Allie with five words she knew she would never forget:

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

And at the moment of detonation, the last of Nick’s chocolate vanished, and Nick opened his arms wide, waiting, waiting, and waiting some more . . . until he realized that the light was not ready to take him, and that he was not ready to go.

When all the souls who needed to complete their journey had done so, the tunnel imploded in upon itself and the light disappeared. Clarence stood at the center of Ground Zero, with one hand reaching for a statue that was no longer there, and the other hand held firmly in a spot where the memory of a bomb used to be.

The raging storm was gone now, dissolving as quickly as it had formed, and Clarence sensed there was a balance in both worlds that hadn’t been there before, and he knew that whatever he had done had been successful. He knew not just because he felt it in his heart, but because his left hand was now unfeeling, his left ear unhearing, and his left eye
unseeing. He was no longer a scar wraith, just a man with scars that were reminders of the many lives he had saved. All he could see, feel, or hear was the living world, and he smiled because he knew that this was as it should be. His only regret was that he wouldn’t get to say good-bye.

Clarence left Trinity site with a new determination to repair the mess he had made of his life. If he could save one world from destruction, and another from domination, then fixing up his life oughta be a cakewalk.

M
ary knew what had happened. Somehow the dark conspiracy had taken all her children from her. She had defiantly looked into the beckoning light, and when the light retreated, she knew she was alone. But not entirely.

“Hello, Mary.”

She turned to see Nick. There was not an ounce of chocolate on him now—not even the small smudge he started with. Mary found that she wanted to hate him—to hate all of them, but she found that she didn’t have the strength.

“Just leave me alone,” she said, letting her copper hair fall before her face to hide him from view.

“So why do you think the light won’t take us?” asked Nick.

“It will take me,” Mary confessed. Then she held up her hand, showing that it was cuffed to the door handle of the car she sat beside. “But I won’t go.”

Nick looked around on the ground until he spotted the key, then he knelt beside Mary, undoing the cuffs and setting her free.

“I’ve loved you for a very long time,” Nick said to her, “in spite of all the bad stuff that’s happened between us. Why do you think that is?”

“I’m not answering your questions, Nick. I have no answers.”

“I’ll tell you why, then. Because you let me see who you
could
be. Not who you were, not who you became, but who you might become. Which means the Mary I love, in a way, hasn’t even been born yet. But she could be now.”

Mary finally looked up at him, feeling that painful twinge of love that had plagued her for so long. She couldn’t handle that unforgiving feeling alone.

“I want to talk to my brother,” she said. “I want to talk to Mikey.”

“He’s gone,” said a voice behind Nick.

Mary looked past Nick to see that Allie had arrived. Jix was there too, and so were her own skinjackers. They had all heard what Nick said, and were looking at her with a putrid mix of fear and pity. She tried to reach her tendrils of light out to snare them, but realized that the persuasive power she always had, which had grown into a mystical force, was now gone. It had been stolen by the light. All that was left of her afterglow now was a faint luminescence, no more remarkable than anyone else’s.

The Pet spoke without as much as raising his hand. “I’m sorry, Miss Mary,” he said, “but I quit.”

She could see in the rest of their faces that The Pet was speaking for all of them. She turned to Nick, who still waited patiently for an answer to his proposition. “You don’t need to be Mary Hightower anymore,” he said. “You could
be Megan Mary McGill . . . all you have to do is accept that you were wrong.”

Mary told him nothing, because there was nothing more to say. Her choices were simple and clear.

“Thank you, Nick,” she said, and she kissed him, allowing herself to savor the moment, and lock it into her memory. Then she turned and walked toward the edge of the deadspot, where the old blue refrigerator stood. She pushed it over, watching it fall backward onto the sands of the living world. In this position it did, indeed, look like a sarcophagus. For the first time she noticed the brand name on the door:
Westinghouse
. Mary could have laughed, for it occurred to her that this would be the only “West” that she’d be going. She grabbed the heavy latching handle and lifted open the door.

“Mary, no!” said Nick.

But Allie grabbed his arm. “This is her choice.”

Mary knew there wasn’t much time, for the refrigerator had already begun to sink. She took one last look at Everlost, the world that had almost been hers . . . then she stepped inside the cramped, claustrophobic space, and laid down on her side, pulling up her knees so that she could fit.

All you have to do is accept that you were wrong.

For Mary Hightower, there could be no such admission. If she could not be in a world where she was the very definition of right, then she would not be in that world at all. She would rather be in a world of one. And so, as her last act as a citizen of Everlost, Mary Hightower pulled the door down, hearing the latch firmly lock into place, and sealed herself into solitary darkness from now until the end of time.

* * *

Nick could have gone after her and pulled her out before it was too late, but Allie was absolutely right. This was Mary’s choice. The others were already turning their backs, and Nick found himself furious at them. “No!” he yelled, holding back tears. “We will watch this! We will give her the dignity of watching this.”

And so they all stood in a circle around the sarcophagus in silence as it sank slowly into the ground, until the last bit of it disappeared beneath the desert sands on its long, lonely journey into the earth’s unyielding embrace.

Q
uantum science says that all that we believe is solid is 99.99 percent empty space. It only seems solid because that’s what our senses are designed to tell us.

Astrophysics says that 27 percent of the universe is dark matter. In other words, stuff that is measurably there, but for some reason no one can see it and no one knows where it is.

Cosmic String Theory says that there aren’t just three dimensions, but that there are actually eleven—but most of them are unable to be perceived from where we sit, no matter how comfortable our chair is.

And in the jagged coastline of Maine, people often have been known to say, “You can’t get there from here,” even when you can see the place right across the inlet.

In short, there are mysteries of science and of soul that will never be understood no matter how hard we measure, no matter how strongly we believe, no matter how deep our think tanks and how high our aspirations. But as anyone will tell you—for we all know this within our hearts—the impossible happens and grand cosmic mysteries are solved on a regular
basis, although most of the time the solutions lead to even greater mysteries.

There is a place, however, where all the mysteries have been solved, and all the answers have been given, and there is nothing anywhere left to know. You can find it if you try, if you are true of heart, and strong of will, and know beyond all else that it is a world you wish to live in.

And when you get there, give my regards to Mary Hightower.

On second thought, don’t.

S
o what should we do with all this stuff?” Allie asked Nick as they looked out at the Trinity deadspot, sitting fifteen feet high on a sofa piled on top of a dozen other sofas.

“Leave it all here,” said Nick. “If anyone left in Everlost needs furniture, we’ll know where to send them.”

Allie could see in Nick a kind of peaceful resolve, but also a certain sorrow deep in his eyes. Or maybe it was just a reflection of her own sadness at having to give Mikey over to the light. Both she and Nick lost someone they loved today, but in very different ways.

“I’m sorry,” Allie said.

“Don’t be,” Nick told her. “You know what they say—what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, right?”

“Well, sure,” said Allie. “But being that you’re already dead, I don’t know if that applies.”

Nick laughed. “You don’t have to worry about me. The light didn’t take me, but it did give me some pretty cool door prizes.”

“It took away the chocolate, for one,” Allie said.

“Yeah, but that’s only part of it. I remember now, Allie. I remember everything! Who I was, who I am, and even who I will be.”

“Oh, so now you can see the future?”

“Not exactly,” said Nick. “But I know my place in it.”

“And that would be . . . ?”

Nick smiled at her. It was a genuine smile. “I’m the new Mary.”

Allie leaned away from him and the sofa shifted treacherously on the pile. “That’s not funny,” she said.

“No, I’m serious,” Nick told her. “That’s why I felt so connected to her. It was in her heart to help and protect everyone who came to Everlost, but she couldn’t separate herself from her calling. Once it became all about her, it got sick and twisted until it destroyed her and almost destroyed the world.”

“So how do you know that won’t happen to you, too?”

Nick shrugged. “Because I turned to chocolate. Because I was melted and got put back together again. Because I saw what happens when you believe you’re the most important person in the universe. It all sort of humbed me, you know?”

Allie thought about that, remembering how helpless she felt inside the coyote. She had always been an ambitious girl, but that awful experience had taught her that there were more forces at work in a balanced world than her own willpower; there was nature, there was wisdom, there was knowledge and understanding. Without life’s humbling experiences, Allie could have been just like Mary Hightower.

Allie looked off to where Jix talked to the skinjackers.
Not just SoSo, Sparkles, and the lot, but the new ones that Mary had so successfully created too. Twenty-three of them, to be exact.

“Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?” Allie asked Nick, as she watched them.

Nick sighed. “I looked right into the light and I still have no idea.”

“Well,” said Allie, starting to climb her way down from the mound of sofas. “Just in case, I’m going to treat everything like it does.” Then she went to join Jix.

“We’ll go back to your towns, and find your sleeping bodies,” Jix told all the skinjackers, as Allie approached. “Some of you will choose to skinjack yourselves and go back to your lives. But some of you I think will be brain-dead, or too badly broken, and you’ll choose not to.”

The new skinjackers stared at him in total shell shock, and understandably so. When it came to comforting words and bedside manner, Jix did not get high marks.

“Listen,” said Allie, bridging a little bit of the distance between them and Jix. “It’s gonna be okay either way. And if you decide to stay in Everlost as skinjackers, well, maybe it was meant to be that way.” Then the questions started flying. All the things they wouldn’t ask Jix, they now threw at Allie.

“Can I skinjack someone skinny?”

“Will I turn into a cat?”

“What if I skinjack a movie star?”

“Can we skinjack one anothers’ bodies?”

“Will I turn into a cat?”

“Am I still lactose intolerant if I skinjack?”

“Will I forget who I am?”

“What if I turn into a cat?”

“Hijole!”
said Jix, throwing up his hands. “Look what you’ve started.”

“All questions will be answered,” Allie told them. Then she added, “And for those of you who end up staying in Everlost, there are some pretty amazing things you can learn to do. You can be like guardian angels, and really do some good in the world.”

“Or,” mumbled SoSo, shamefully looking down, “you can destroy it.”

“Somehow,” said Allie, “I don’t think that will be a problem anymore.”

They all walked together to the town of Alamogordo, and there, on a corner as ordinary as any in the world, they said their good-byes.

“We’re staying here in town for a day or two,” said Jix. “I want to teach the new skinjackers the basics, in case they decide to stay. Mary’s skinjackers could use some training too.”

Allie gave him a hug, feeling the velvet softness of his fledgling fur, now a little bit thicker than when they first met. “Thank you for freeing me from the train.”